


Gold and Ivory

by ColorsofaYinYang



Category: The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan (Video Game), Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Everyone lives/Nobody dies, Feral Josh Washington, Imprisonment, M/M, Manchurian Gold, Post-Canon, Probably scent stuff bc I can't help myself, Slow Burn, Wendigo Josh Washington
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24673753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorsofaYinYang/pseuds/ColorsofaYinYang
Summary: After the events of Until Dawn, Chris finds himself trapped with the others in a mysterious facility. With the help of Brad, Alex, Fliss, Conrad and Julia, they come up with a plan to escape.However, that plan revolves around whether or not Chris can tame the wendigo that used to be his best friend.
Relationships: Alex Smith & Brad Smith, Chris Hartley & Brad Smith, Chris Hartley/Josh Washington, Mike Munroe & Conrad
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rippergirl1888](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rippergirl1888/gifts).



> Prompt from rippergirl1888 on Tumblr, thanks for your patience and support! I'm pretty bad at pacing but I hope I can do your idea justice.

_ Drip. Drip. Drip. _

There’s a leak somewhere overhead; Chris can hear the water droplets hitting the plastic ceiling tiles above. Other than that, nothing but the sound of his own breathing. It’s been a week or two since Mike was dragged kicking and screaming out of their cell for trying to pick a fight with the guards. Chris hasn’t seen him since.

There are worse places to be held, his inner optimist tells him. Admittedly, the guards aren’t  _ too  _ rough with him when he has to be escorted somewhere, and some even give him small objects to amuse himself with like nubs of white and blue chalk, and a deck of cards. Every couple of days he gets to see the others (minus Mike) in the communal lunchroom. And he hasn’t been tortured yet. That’s the selling point for sure.

His inner pessimist snaps at that part of him to shut up. They still don’t know what’s happened to Mike, or why they’re even being held here apart from the vague “research” muttered in their general direction. Jess is freaking out, Ashley’s shutting down, and he can hear Matt crying in the room on his left every night.

Their families think they’re in emotional rehabilitation. No one is coming for them. They’ll have to escape on their own.

_ Tap tap tap.  _ The sound comes from the wall between his cell and Emily and Ashley’s. A signal. He hastily clambers back into the metal framed bed pushed against the wall, taps to pass it on, then tries to act like he’s asleep. There’s someone shouting down the hall, accompanied by the sound of metal clanking. He jolts as the cell door bursts open and the guards throw a kid his age onto the floor. With a slam the door closes again, leaving them in the flickering dimness. 

“Wait! Shit…” The guy puts his head in his hands and sobs, scrunched into a ball with his knees pinned to his chest.

Chris sits up. “Uh, hey…” Instantly, the stranger’s head shoots up and he scrambles into the furthest corner away. “Whoa, whoa, easy. I’m not gonna hurt you.” He holds up his hands in a placating manner.  _ Why is he here? Is he some poor trespasser who wandered up the mountain and got caught in this wendigo business?  _ “I’m Chris.” He offers. “What’s your name?”

There’s still a flicker of distrust in the other’s eyes, but he relaxes slightly. “B-brad.” Chris smiles as reassuringly as he can.

“Well. Hi, Brad.”  _ A few weeks of isolation have not helped his social skills in the slightest,  _ he thinks. There’s a moment of awkward silence. “So, you, uh… wendigos, yeah?” 

“Wendigos?” Brad repeats, utterly baffled. Chris quickly backtracks.

“I mean… is that not why you’re here?” Brad shakes his head and gives him a strange look, but he doesn’t look terrified out of his mind anymore, so Chris will take one for the team.

“No…? Me and my brother and a few other people were going on a diving trip and we ended up on an abandoned ship that had this really dangerous chemical on it. It basically makes you hallucinate crazy stuff. After we got picked up all these official-looking people started asking us questions and then we got taken here.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “I just want to go home, man.” 

Chris hums and nods sympathetically. “I feel that.” He hesitantly moves off the bed and approaches the other, crouching down to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder. “If it helps, I’m here for a pretty crazy reason too. We went up Mount Washington and there were actual wendigos trying to eat us. My best friend, he… he didn’t make it.”  _ Poor, poor Josh…  _ “I miss him so much.” He grits his teeth and ducks his head, telling his watering eyes  _ not now.  _

“M’ sorry.” Brad turns and wraps his arms around Chris, seeking comfort. The blonde reciprocates by reaching around and rubbing small circles into his back, like he would do for Josh. They hold each other for a long moment. “So wendigos are real, then?” Brad mumbles into Chris’ neck.

“Yeah dude.”

“Huh.” He reluctantly untangles himself from Chris and clears his throat. “So… what do they want from us? To make sure we keep all this stuff secret? Are they… gonna kill us?”

Chris shakes his head. “I’m not sure. But they haven’t really done much so far, apart from asking us about our experiences. I don’t think they’d go through all the trouble of keeping us here if they wanted to kill us.” He stands and offers his hand. “You can take the bed over there, okay? Technically it’s my friend Mike’s, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you used it. Tomorrow we’ll probably see everyone at lunch, so you should get some sleep.” 

“Okay, I will. Thanks, man.” Brad goes to lie down on the dirty mattress, sneezing when a cloud of dust rises from the pillow. “Ugh, I’m leaving this place a bad review on Yelp.” 

They both laugh, and the primitive part of Chris’ brain sparks with joy at the company.

~

“Who’s the new guy?” Sam asks as he gestures for Brad to take a seat. The menu for the day consists of canned peas, bowls of chicken broth, some sort of crusty bread and orange and pear slices. Jess eyes Brad suspiciously from the other end of the table.

“Relax, he’s in the same boat as us,” Em drawls, waving her hand. “I saw him and a few others being dragged in here.” She narrows her eyes at the confused looks the others give her. “What? Our door is the only one with a window, remember?”

Em’s the one who had devised their signal system, so of course everyone remembers. Whenever she or Ash spots someone approaching out of their tiny window, they’ll run and tap the walls to let the others know. Brad perks up at her words, and turns to her with his wide eyed gaze. “Did you see where they went? Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, everyone looked fine, just upset. They’ll probably show up in a bit.” She looks him over. “What’s your name?” 

A round of introductions ensues. Em and Sam are intrigued by Brad’s story, while Matt is mostly ambivalent. Jess asks about how they got here, likely trying to devise some sort of strategy for escaping. Ash is noticeably quiet; Chris tries to get her attention, but she seems lost in her thoughts. 

Brad’s halfway through his story about being captured by pirates when a guard enters and gestures for him. “Dr. Niece would like to ask you a few questions.” He shoots Chris a panicked, questioning look.

“You’ll be fine,” Chris promises, patting him on the back. Brad nods, a look of determination crossing his face. He follows the guard out of the room.

Seconds after he leaves, a familiar face walks in with another guard. “Hey guys, miss me?”

“Mike?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My coping mechanism is humor and I think Chris' is the same.


	2. reunion

“Solitary confinement?” Sam asks, looking thoughtful. Mike nods, eyes flitting between everyone as if affirming that they’re all there. To anyone else, he would have looked fine, but there’s that telltale jittery edge to his movements that tells of some underlying anxiety. Jess squeezes his hand reassuringly. “Well, we’re glad you’re out now. And also glad you weren’t secretly being tortured or something.”

“Me too, but it wasn’t fun. Note to self: don’t fight the guards,” Mike chuckles self-deprecatingly. “I wasn’t just let out for nothing; they said something about turning it into a testing room. For what, I don’t fucking know.” Suddenly, he sits up and grins manically. “But you know what I heard while I was down there in the dark?”

“What?”

He leans forward, lowering his voice. “High pitched screeching and howling. A fucking wendigo, man. There’s a wendigo somewhere around here. Which means-”

“-We’re back on the mountain,” Sam realizes. Her brow creases. “Are they trying to do research on wendigos? How did they even catch one?”

“Never mind that, where are they keeping it?” Em butts in. “A wild wendigo on the loose… it’d be the perfect distraction.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ashley finally speaks up, voice distraught. “We nearly died to those things! Who says it won’t kill  _ us _ ? Letting one out is a bad idea.” She crosses her arms, as if daring someone to disagree.

Mike holds up his hands in a pacifying manner. “Hey now, it was just a thought. Don’t rip my head off.” He sighs heavily. “Listen, I have a feeling we’re running out of time. The head doctor here, Niece, kept coming in to talk to me and my mental state. He needs us in good condition for something. We’re going to have to make a move soon, or else.”

“Well, I don’t know if you heard the news, but there’s a new group of kids in town,” Chris informs. “If we’re-” he lowers his voice “-escaping, we can’t leave them behind.”

As he says that, a bell overheard rings, and a few guards enter the room to escort them back to their cells. Mike sighs and shrugs. “We’ll talk about it later,” he says, tapping his pointer finger to his temple in their code for ‘stay alert.’ He snags a chunk of bread as the guards start escorting them out of the room.

Chris follows Mike obediently back to their cell, but before he can enter one of the guards puts a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. The doctor would like to talk to you.” Chris exchanges glances with Mike. “Please follow me.”

He’s led down a long corridor and a few flights of stairs, to a large white room with a noticeable lack of furniture. The walls are padded. A sense of unease and dread trickles cold down his spine. Just as he enters, the door swings shut behind him, and a thick yellow gas starts to pump into the room through a hole in the ceiling, coalescing into a layer on the ground.

Thoughts of poison gas and neurotoxin instantly start racing through his mind. “Shit!” Panicking, he tries to keep his head above the swirling layer of gas, holding his breath for as long as possible. But eventually he has to breathe, and as he takes in a short, sharp gasp his darting eyes catch onto a figure in the corner.

“Ash?” He whispers, panicked. She turns around with a growl. Before his eyes her face pales and her hair falls out, teeth elongating into bloody fangs. Her cheeks hollow and her eyes become milky. She snarls at him and advances.

Glancing wildly around for anything that could help him, the rest of his friends materialize around him, all sporting the features of wendigos. They growl accusingly at him. Defeated, he slumps down onto the floor and waits for judgement to be doled out. He deserves it; he failed them.

All together, they begin screeching, howling wildly at the sterile white ceiling above. Chris flinches and covers his ears instinctually, shutting his eyes. He counts out a minute, trying to breathe. When he opens his eyes again, his friends are gone, and so is the yellow mist.

However, the screeches continue. A loud thump comes from the other side of the wall, followed by a grating scratching noise. The door opens and the guard comes back in. “The test is over. The doctor will see you now.” In steps a whip-thin man in a lab coat, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. A wisp of greying hair covers his head.

“Hello. Chris, is it? I am Dr. Niece.” Chris stares at him distrustfully, head woozy from all the adrenaline still pumping through his veins. “Tell me truthfully, how are you feeling?”

“Dizzy,” he replies. Another inhuman shriek from the next room. “What is that sound?”

The doctor looks pleased. “Curious, are you? I can show you, please follow me.” The guard pokes Chris’ shoulder blade with his baton, snapping him out of his daze.

Before they enter the adjacent room the doctor turns to Chris and holds up a finger. “Stay calm and quiet, lest you agitate it,” he warns. Oh boy. Chris has a pretty good feeling he knows what’s behind that door.

The guard lingers behind as they enter, obviously uncomfortable. The inside is almost pitch black, and Chris pauses for a moment to let his eyes adjust. A figure is crouched against the far wall, limbs shackled and chained. With a single glance it’s obviously a wendigo, albeit clothed and with hair. Recently turned, it looks like. But upon closer inspection…

_ Josh?!  _ Chris stiffens in shock once he recognizes his best friend. He has to bite his lip to not immediately shout and rush over to give him a hug. Dr. Niece puts a hand on his shoulder, misinterpreting his sudden freezing as fear. “Don’t worry, I know what you and your friends have been through. You have no need to fear this creature.”

“R-right,” Chris coughs out, swallowing futilely through his dry throat. Josh’s head perks up, white eyes honing in on Chris from across the room. In an instant, he’s lunging and straining against his bonds, snarling at them. His fangs look like knives in the dark.

Dr. Niece tsks and calmly backs out of the room, gently tugging Chris with him. Back outside in the gritty artificial lighting, the world looks starchly different from the one he had left behind just a few minutes ago.  _ Josh is alive… in a sense. I have to tell the others. _ “Go back to your room and get some rest,” the doctor instructs, nodding at the guard. “I will see you again.” 

Chris walks away from Josh in his time of need once again. But this time, he’s not planning on staying away for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things said during the making of this fic:  
> "How do write?"  
> "It's good enough just post it already-"  
> "ughhhhh"  
> "I just need to finish this chapter!!!"
> 
> Thanks for reading XD


End file.
